Uncanny valley? Not even close. It looks fake, not creepy fake. The skin is plasticky, the lighting too soft, the hair very flat, etc. To be honest it really doesn't wow me.

Star Citizen was putting out work-in-progress pictures like this two years ago using current hardware and the models have since been overhauled. I consider that much more compelling given that this is a real implementation, rather than a tech demo running on a setup that is unattainable for 99% of people.

We've all seen so many tech demos over the years that pan out to be nothing - for all intents and purposes it might as well be pre-rendered.

It's rather misleading to call them dedicated servers when players can't host them themselves or act as admins. Not that it matters, as COD games are so overpriced and derivative that they don't even register for me anymore.

Krovven wrote on Apr 21, 2015, 19:16:Exaggerated analogy that doesn't really fit. Similar to Battlelog it removes cumbersome database heavy info from the game and puts it in a place that's not going to bloat the client.

Having to sign in to a network to play a game is nothing new and the majority now. While I accept that some don't like that, that's reality now. At least with this there are many benefits to the service that enhance the game.

It should be optional, just like it is with Cities Skylines. The last thing gamers want is to have to manage accounts from every publisher because they insist upon using a proprietary system, particularly if the accounts are vulnerable to theft. Imagine if you had to sign up for an account every time you buy a different loaf of bread or music album.

I haven't played GTA V but RSC was utterly worthless and irritating in GTA IV and other games. It's forced upon users for no good reason. The only way for people to keep track of all their accounts is to create a database or use the same details for every account (which is hugely insecure). By the time I'm 50 I'll probably have 20,000 different accounts for websites, apps, games, etc. Saying it's 'nothing new' isn't an excuse - genocide isn't anything new but that doesn't mean it's a good thing.

PS - I'm not excluding Steam, Origin or Uplay from criticism either. I have no problem with those services but they should be optional, not forced upon users. If I buy a game on Steam it should use Steamworks - not Uplay or Origin. Same if it was bought on Origin or Uplay. It's even worse when we're talking about EA, which actively boycotts Steam.

Krovven wrote on Apr 21, 2015, 14:24:Actually there is a lot of useful stats tracking, crew management, and at least on consoles for now all the user made jobs are managed from SC. There are plenty more little things, but these are a few of the big ones. I'd no sooner like to remove all of this than remove Steam and all of its features.

The issue is that it's mandatory. I have no doubt that many of those features are useful to a lot of players but when they're forced upon everybody it's a problem. I'm sure a lot of people would like a free blowjob when they buy a dishwasher but those that don't shouldn't have to endure a toothless shemale whore gnawing on their lovestick.

nin wrote on Apr 21, 2015, 10:24:I was under the impression it's being used for GTA online. Is that not the case?

Multiplayer games don't require an online account, so that's no excuse. It's only required for marketing (to flog you more shit) or for advertising (whoring out your personal information for their profit).

Love this game. I've only owned it a week and already sunk 40hrs into it. I refuse to buy EA games, so it's great that we have a game that is better, cheaper and worth supporting. This game is seriously addictive! I was playing the other day and checked my Steam counter to see that I'd been playing for over eight hours solid (no food, no toilet break, no distractions).

To be honest I wasn't expecting much after games like Cities In Motion and Cities XL.

SpectralMeat wrote on Apr 7, 2015, 15:19:I did, and I know Creston did too, he is a huge fan of that game. Almost like a fanboy of sort For me personally this review kind of sums up my feelings

I saw that review and, having played previous X games, wasn't at all surprised. As much as I love the genre I can't stand those games.

Tipsy McStagger wrote on Apr 7, 2015, 15:16:Did any of you guys play X-Rebirth?

It had a whole bunch of "pretty" station running around in that game which served to do two things:

#1: Annoy the shit out of the player#2: Waste tons of time not actually playing the game.

I feel like while walking into Dumper's Depot looks cool. Functionally, as a video game should be fun foremost, it will be tedious and boring as fuck.

Nothing I've seen suggests the planetside content will be boring and unnecessary. In fact one of the videos CIG put out explained how they were implementing NPC events (i.e. a bandit might attack you or a shady character will offer you a mission) and allowing people the ability to sneak in weapons in order to make sure players are always on their toes. They recognised that locations like those shown are impressive at first but quickly blend into the background, so they'll be creating dynamic activities to create compelling experiences. Whether they'll deliver is another matter but they're certainly well aware of the mistakes of other games.

I picture it as being something like Skyrim, only a bit more interactive and with other players. As with most elements of the game players will be able to choose what to prioritise, so if you don't care for the planetside locations you can minimise your exposure to them.

Cutter wrote on Apr 3, 2015, 22:02:I'm sure with their 100 million sales, or whatever the final tally will be, they're all broken up about that. And you'll be the only gamer on earth that hasn't played it.

No self-respecting PC gamer should buy GTA V after the contempt that Rockstar has shown for the platform. I know I certainly won't, despite owning every other entry in the series. I prefer not to pay the people pissing in my face.

Dmitri_M wrote on Apr 2, 2015, 16:38:I will wait until the state of the pc port becomes clear. I recall 4's performance on PC being terrible.

Which was fixed not long after release and ran excellently, even when you unlock the settings to max them out.

No it wasn't. I have an i7 2600K @4.6GHz, 12GB RAM, 2x GTX970 and a 30" 2560x1600 display and the game runs like ass. I can max out Crysis and get a solid 60fps yet with GTA 4, a game that looks like ass, I get drops to 30fps and it runs at 45-55fps. It was one of the worst ports I've seen.

Frags4Fun wrote on Apr 2, 2015, 12:22:My guess is that this video isn't showing max settings but rather highlighting 60 FPS.

Of course it's showing the highest setting, it's a promotional video. The reality is that it's a one-and-a-half year old console game that's been ported to PC. It was never a good looking game and Rockstar really doesn't give a shit about PC gamers.

Tumbler wrote on Apr 1, 2015, 13:47:I think NegaDeath has a lot of good points to be honest.

The original pitch was for a Wing commander style campaign in an up to date game engine. To date they've shown almost none of that. What they are showing is bits and pieces of what will be in the persistent universe and showing almost none of the SP experience.

That's deliberate. Chris Roberts will be travelling to the UK and spending the next couple of months there in order to oversee the motion capture shoot. All the details will be kept under wraps until release so as not to spoil the story, though I'm sure we'll see some tidbits. At the moment they're working on the core mechanics and designing all the areas. In other words, they don't have anything to show off and they want to avoid ruining the surprise.

Tumbler wrote on Apr 1, 2015, 13:47:The G-Safe limiter as it's implemented now sucks because you do black out and red out just doing normal maneuvers. I'd prefer they fixed that so you could fly anyway you choose without ever experiencing higher G's. With G-safe off then you should see red outs and black outs as happen now with it on.

As I said it depends on the speed of the ship and whether you're using boost (which disables G-Safe). Ships like the Hornet and Aurora are quite difficult to black out in; ships like the Mustang Omega, M50 and 350R are quite easy to black out in. If you go around everywhere at max speeds and boosting whilst manoeuvring then you'll black out. Don't forget that at the moment we only have the single-seater ships - blacking out will be extremely unlikely in the bigger ships. That said, the system will inevitably be tweaked before release.

Tumbler wrote on Apr 1, 2015, 13:47:The only part of Arena commander that applies to what the campaign should be like is the Vandaal swarm mode in SP or Co-Op. Those modes happen to be the most fun for me but only because the Vanduul fly something like what we've come to expect in other games. They don't change course randomly in all directions making it frustrating to chase and fight them as you see in pvp.

You mean to say that online PVP isn't like Wing Commander? I think that statement is a bit redundant. We'll see more as we get towards AC 2.0, where we'll see new missions like escort the Idris. Before that we'll have the FPS and social modules, which will no doubt require a lot of community feedback to polish up. If you've seen some of the presentations they've done you'll see that a huge amount of work has been done on the planetside locations and FPS module.

Tumbler wrote on Apr 1, 2015, 13:47:I believe they're planning on rolling out the first part of the SP campaign in the last quarter of this year...but that is an ever moving date. I honestly don't know what to expect from the SP campaign because they've been so quite about it. They could be just holding back so they have a ton of stuff for people to be excited about when they release or they could be hiding the fact that the missions and story and the whole campaign just isn't coming together well.

They're not hiding anything. At the moment they haven't done the motion capture shoot, so they don't have any scenes to share. They also don't want to spoil the surprise. We'll see some information drop over the next 6-8 months but expect most of it to be a surprise. Once it has been released we'll see a lot of community feedback and changes will be incorporated from there. Despite the open nature of the development most people don't want major spoilers of upcoming content. I think the biggest reveal will be some of the actors involved, as based on previous products we can expect major Hollywood talent.

Of course there is grounds for concern but generally everything I've seen is progressing in the right direction.

jdreyer wrote on Apr 1, 2015, 05:58:Even though we reached 100 comments in this thread, I'm still claiming Peak Star Citizen. We're in the "bumpy plateau phase" of it, so expect to see some threads above 100, and some below. Eventually interest in SC will peter out altogether.

NegaDeath wrote on Apr 1, 2015, 01:32:Yeah no still wrong. I backed a Wing Commander successor. That was what was promised during the kickstarter and the very first video showed that. I am not getting that in the remotest sense.

As a huge fan of Wing Commander and Starlancer I love the direction of the game, so again it's your expectations. If you go back and look at gameplay videos of Wing Commander III / IV you'll see that it's terrible by modern standards. Starlancer was the more recent game and Star Citizen is very much in that vein.

NegaDeath wrote on Apr 1, 2015, 01:32:I turn left, screen goes red. Every single time. Doesn't happen in Elite. Or Wing Commander. Or X-Wing/TIE. You don't see your inconsistency in telling me I'm getting Wing Commander while telling me I can't play it like Wing Commander. I've been ripped off, end of story.

You clearly haven't taken the time to learn the gameplay mechanics, as surprisingly enough most people aren't redding / blacking out all the time. Some ships are more sensitive than others but obviously if you go around at maximum speed / using the thrusters and turning sharply you'll exceed g-force limits - just like a real pilot would. Use the throttle.

Which ship do you have? If it's something like the Mustang Omega, the free one that came with AMD cards, then that ship is extremely sensitive due to the speed and you can't fly it around at maximum speed when turning. In something like the Hornet it's very difficult to red / black out, due to the lower speed and more controlled manoeuvring. Because of the way physics are handled in Star Citizen each ship handles very differently.

NegaDeath wrote on Apr 1, 2015, 01:32:Here's an example from a guide I looked up that illustrates my point perfectly

"There is one very important step in learning to fly your ship in Star Citizen: FORGET ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING YOU THINK YOU KNOW ABOUT FLYING AN AIRPLANE OR SHIP IN A VIDEOGAME"

So I'm "getting what was promised" while at the same time the fans admit it plays nothing like his or the industries previous games. One of these things are not like the other.

It's been twenty years since the last Chris Roberts Wing Commander game and fifteen years since Starlancer. Gaming has moved on since then and Star Citizen reflects that. It was pitched as a spiritual successor to Wing Commander and Starlancer, which is exactly what it is. Nowhere was it promised that it would be a direct recreation of the Wing Commander physics - in fact it was CLEARLY stated back in October 2012 that it WOULDN'T be like Wing Commander. Again, your expectations were wrong - the game is what was promised.

Tumbler wrote on Mar 31, 2015, 17:33:I think it's better to compare it to the Connie which was $225 by itself way back when. The standard connie comes with a second fighter as well and seems to kick the crap out of this thing in stats. I can only assume that the Vanguard will make up for that in armor and shields...possibly speed but the connie seems to have it topped as a heavy fighter.

The Vanguard is a deep-space fighter, meaning that it has redundancy - it was two engines and two power plants, plus it will be more manoeuvrable than the Constellation. It's also mil-spec, meaning it has higher quality components. However, you're right that it's an expensive ship. As for the Constellation, there are various models with the top model costing $350 (the Phoenix). The Redeemer is the more apt comparison, as at $250 it seems like the best ship in its price range - it has two manner turrets and supports 5 crew. That's probably a better choice for most people.